Family Business Profile | The Fabricator Magazine

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■ ■ ■ Family Business Profile
Cycling through a
business transition
CFIGURE 1 In 1994 motorcycle enthusiasts Lori (left) and Traci Tapani left careers in accounting and finance, respectively, to join their father Tom Tapani (center) at Wyoming Machine.
Lori and Traci Tapani break out of the mold
in fabrication management
By Tim Heston, Senior Editor
aybe it’s the fact Lori calls her sister
“Trace,” short for Traci. Maybe it’s
because they complete each other’s
sentences. Or that they live a block
apart. Or that they had their first children (both
girls) within two weeks of each other. Or that
they both first went into finance: Lori was a
CPA, Traci a banker specializing in international trade finance. Or that they left that life to
join their father’s company for the same reasons:
a balanced life and a chance to engage with people who make real products. In fact, it probably
wouldn’t take all this background. Just meeting
them and noting their mannerisms show an im-
M
mutable fact: These sisters are close.
Leading the family business at Stacy, Minn.,
job shop Wyoming Machine Inc., the two even
share a job title: co-president (see Figure 1).
They’ve headed Wyoming since 1997 and together, using a progressive management style,
have transformed it into a lean enterprise.
They’ve taken their process management expertise from the financial world and applied it
to the shop floor. And they’ve led with
grounded character and a determination to try
new things. The result has been a firm with a diverse customer base and a sales record that, with
a significant dip in 2001 aside, has grown about
6 percent a year.
CFIGURE 2 Stacy, Minn.-based metal fabricator
Wyoming Machine launched in 1974 in Wyoming,
Minn., as a machine shop—hence the name.
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CFIGURE 3 Cross-trained workers inspect a recently formed part.
What’s in a Name?
Their father can be blamed for the company’s
name, which in 1974 wasn’t so incongruous (see
Figure 2). That’s when Tom Tapani launched
the company as a machine shop in Wyoming,
Minn., a few miles south of Stacy and about 30
miles north of the Twin Cities. A few years later
he moved the company to its current industrial
park location. By the mid-1980s he had reduced
much of Wyoming’s machining work and got
into what was, at that time and place, the more
lucrative field of metal fabrication.
Being an early technology adopter made the
business especially lucrative. “In 1985 we were
one of the first companies in the market to be
offering laser cutting. By the early 1990s we
were using lasers to cut heavy plate,” Traci said.
“At the time we were just competing with
plasma cutting systems, and people really liked
the precision that the laser brought.”
Soon the company stopped machining altogether as more heavy-sheet metal work flowed
in from major OEMs in the heavy-equipment
arena and elsewhere. Those OEMs found
Wyoming’s precision-laser-cut parts eased their
own welding, finishing, and assembly. In other
words, the shop’s laser services stood out in a
crowd; it was an easy sell.
Evel Knievel Helmets
In the late 1990s Traci was pregnant, ready to
go on maternity leave—only it was cut a tad
short. When a customer’s purchasing staff
“found out I just had a baby, they had an absolute fit,” Traci recalled. “They needed work
on something involving a cost reduction, so I
literally came back to work in one day.”
Lori chimed in. “So she had the baby on
Sunday at 7 p.m., and she was back in the office
on Tuesday.”
Several years later a major customer sent
work out for bid to “reprice” a job. At this point
Wyoming Machine had racked up an impressive
track record, providing the customer with a
quality rate of 99.8 percent and on-time delivery rate of 99 percent. “So even though we had
been a vendor for many years,” Lori recalled,
“we had lost the work because we were not the
lowest price. Our almost perfect quality and ontime delivery record didn’t matter.”
Despite retirement and having only a
passing interest in the family business, Tom
didn’t like what was happening to his daughters.
“For him, it was really important for us
to do a really good
job being moms,
even if we were to
run the business,”
Traci recalled.
Lori added, “Even though our father had
started the company, we were always told that
our mom, who didn’t work outside the home,
had the most important job in the family.”
Taking these recollections at face value, it
might seem odd that Tom had wanted his
daughters to lead the family business. To understand it fully requires a bit of backstory.
It started with minibikes.
“Everyone in our family rides motorcycles,”
Lori said. “We have that passion as a group.”
Lori and Traci—whom the family calls “the
girls”—got their first minibikes when they were
6 and 7, respectively, complete with Evel
Knievel helmets and harness boots. “He brought
us up with the idea that we could do anything,”
said Traci.
And what better symbolizes that than an
Evel Knievel helmet?
Traci laughed. “We had a different upbringing. He taught us things that not many kids do.”
As just one example, he invited the girls to help
mix cement to make a concrete sidewalk. “His
thinking was, ‘You might get married, and your
husband won’t know how to mix cement, so
you’ll have to do it.’”
That you-can-do-anything self-reliance he
instilled likely led Tom to handle the business
succession the way he did. In the early 1990s his
financial and insurance advisers stepped in with
questions: Who would take on the business if
something were to happen to him, and who
would take over once he retired? He told them
his dream was to have “the girls” succeed him.
Did he discuss the idea with them? Of course
not. Not only did the girls have good city jobs
sitting in large granite buildings behind mahogany desks, but he had no wish to push them
in any career direction. They could do anything
they wanted; it wasn’t for him to decide.
So Tom handled the transition with utmost
tact. Traci and Lori met with their father’s advisers, and Tom, not wanting to influence their
decision, didn’t attend. The sisters went home
to think it over, and shortly thereafter the latetwentysomethings decided to join the family
business. Not only did it give them a chance to
work with people they had known since childhood, but it also allowed them a bit more flexibility over their schedule than the corporate
world permitted. Besides, it gave them a chance
to work for a company that made real things.
Their hands-on-work upbringing, it seemed,
was calling them, and it was time for them to
don those Evel Knievel motorcycle helmets, at
The company continues investing in
training; everyone on the floor has
expertise in multiple processes.
least metaphorically. A flexible schedule didn’t
mean they worked less, of course. Their bulldog
tenacity shone through during tough times. Not
everyone, for instance, would go to work less
than 48 hours after having a baby.
No More 80-20
Earlier this decade the push toward lowest price
was the new normal. Long-term relationships
between OEMs and contract manufacturers
changed. Job shops couldn’t depend on work
from just a few large customers. Instead, numerous accounts of low-volume work made for a stable, thriving whole.
“We met a [business owner] who bought
into the 80-20 theory completely,” Lori said.
“[His company managers] sliced and diced their
entire business on it.”
The strategy didn’t work for Wyoming’s situation. A large heavy- equipment OEM customer
projected huge expansion in 2000, but orders
plummeted by year’s end as work was sent across
the ocean. At the same time, a large telecom firm
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was growing like wildfire, acquiring companies
and sending out RFQs worth millions. “We did
$1 million worth of work [with the company]
during the first six months,” Traci recalled.
Lori added, “That doesn’t normally happen
with a brand-new customer.”
They knew something wasn’t right. Growing up around their father’s business, they
knew the company started with business relationships that began small and grew over time.
This in turn nurtured trust between business
partners, and that trust wasn’t built over just a
few months.
Sure enough, by 2001 much of the telecom
work, among other contracts, dried up. But the
company survived in part, they said, because of
some of the changes that started taking root in
the late 1990s. Over time Wyoming diversified
its base and now serves a range of industries producing everything from playground systems to
store fixtures.
String Art
Getting into the playground market had an
added benefit: The company worked with a customer that was well down the lean path. Lean
manufacturing is contagious, and the partnership with Delano, Minn.-based Landscape
Structures proved it, the sisters said. Landscape
Structures was meeting demand for skateboard
parks popping up in city parks and recreation
areas across the country, and beginning in 2002
Wyoming partnered with the company to turn
thick-gauge, 60- by 120-inch sheet into skateboard ramps. Together the companies developed radiused fixtures that could support large,
rolled sheets during welding.
“The company was really great to work
with,” Traci said. “They were already into lean
and doing kaizen events. We would have our
team visit their shop, and they had people
visit ours.”
Although Lori and Traci didn’t dwell on
lean’s terminology, early on they knew the philosophy, with roots in a product line environment, had potential in the job shop. Through
working with Landscape Structures and others,
they knew the philosophy dealt with people
first, technology second. In 1997 Lori and Traci
distributed copies of The Seven Habits of Highly
Effective People. Engineering consultants came
in to discuss lean basics, and over time the company adapted lean to its culture.
Part flow topped the list during the first
kaizen sessions. Employees developed what they
called “string art.” Using a corkboard and colored string, they mapped out how certain product groups flowed through the shop. With no
product line, the shop grouped parts based on
gauge and processes. For instance, they put materials of similar thicknesses that required only
laser cutting into one group, represented by a
certain colored string; materials that required
cutting and bending went into another group,
represented by another string; and so on. Where
strings crossed in a tangled mess represented
bottlenecks.
Both Lori and Traci, coming from finance,
had process-based backgrounds. Every financial
transaction had a specific process attached to it,
and at Wyoming they used this same process
thinking. They integrated process codes into
enterprise resource planning (ERP) software
that would signify what processes each part
would go through. For instance, a part would be
assigned a “P10” code if it needed to be cut,
bent, and welded. “P11” signified a part needing
all that plus outside finishing. Not only did this
streamline work flow (a worker knows exactly
where a part must flow just by looking at a
code), it also helped with quoting. By analyzing
work history, including these assigned codes,
the software would reveal the overall cost of
making those parts, including the labor-hours.
(Lori, with her accounting background, has
spearheaded the part- and labor-tracking effort.
Employees, genuine and appreciative, poke a little fun too. “They call me Roz from [the movie]
‘Monsters Inc.’ ‘You didn’t turn in your paperwork,’” she said, imitating the character’s nicotine-charred, gravelly voice.)
All this led to a dramatic reduction in inventory and work-in-process (WIP). But to
truly eliminate bottlenecks in such a job shop
environment, the shop began cross training (see
Figures 3 and 4). “If you’re working in welding,
and there isn’t something for you to weld in
your area, you may be working in forming,” Lori
said. “It’s just a given in our environment.”
Throughput is the name of the game. In the
past some orders arrived 12 weeks early and, to
keep machines running, were manufactured on
the floor ahead of schedule. Meanwhile rush orders sloshed through a shop floor cluttered with
CFIGURE 4 A worker welds an assembly at
Wyoming Machine. (Note the motorcycle calendar in the background—the Tapanis’ passion.)
WIP and finished inventory. Today nothing hits
the floor until it needs to in order to meet the
delivery date (see Figure 5).
Building Respect
During tours many industry colleagues ask if the
co-presidents have frequent disputes as to who
has final say. And with all the business changes
over the past decade, does their father step in at
all? They answer no to both questions.
“We work very closely together, and I know
things she’s better at than I am, and when push
comes to shove, I let her make the final decision on those,” Lori said, and vice versa.
As for the second question, Traci continued, “We’re lucky. We have a dad who was
CFIGURE 5 Finished-goods inventory once filled this entire space. Thanks to lean processes, the company has freed up space for future growth.
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ready to move on from the business when we took
over. So there’s never been a power struggle. Dad
has moved on.”
In 1997 Tom had started to take off work for
weeks at a time, and by the next year he stopped
coming to work at all. As Traci recalled, “Two years
passed and we were ready to start the new millennium, and Dad still had the title of president. So
Lori and I met and said, ‘We’ve got to ask him: Did
you want to retire?’ When we did, Dad said, ‘What
are you talking about? I retired two years ago.’”
It was their dad’s way, they said. They kept a
close relationship throughout, but work rarely entered the conversation. Tom saw “the girls” take
charge, and he faded quietly into the background.
After their father’s subtle handoff, the business
continued to thrive. Today the shop has minimal
WIP and finished-goods inventory. And it has 55
employees producing just about the same revenue
as 85 employees generated in 1999.
The company continues investing in training;
everyone on the floor has expertise in multiple
processes. But is this training investment worth it?
Does it encourage employees to find other jobs for
50 cents more an hour?
“We don’t have a fear of that, really,” Traci said.
“If someone wants to go somewhere else, we tell
them they should, even if they’re extremely talented. We don’t want to hold people back from another opportunity. A few people have left for a
competitor for a few years but then came back, because of our culture here.”
How do you define that culture? Lori boiled it
down to a phrase: “We have respect for people,” she
said. “It’s that simple.” ■
Senior Editor Tim Heston can be reached at [email protected].
Wyoming Machine Inc.
30680 Forest Blvd.
Stacy, MN 55079
651-462-4156
www.wyomingmachine.com
Managing as a minority
When Lori and Traci Tapani, co-presidents of Stacy, Minn., metal fabricator Wyoming
Machine, attended their first industry conference, they walked into a seminar room
and sat alone at a table. The equipment salesperson giving the presentation piped
up. “Hey! The blondes are mine!”
“When we were in banking and accounting, people never said that,” Lori said.
Being women business owners, they’re a minority in metal fabrication, and both
admit that gaining acceptance wasn’t always easy. But once fellow industry managers actually sit down to talk about ideas, Lori said, judgmental preconceptions
fade pretty quickly.
For instance, at one conference they sat next to a job shop owner who asked if
they were partners. “And he didn’t mean business partners,” Lori recalled. They politely said they were business partners—and also sisters. After the awkwardness
subsided, the group got to talking. It turned out the job shop owner was implementing the same ERP program that the Tapanis launched the year before. As Lori
explained, “We kept in touch months after that interesting first meeting.”
Traci added: “If we can sit down and talk with others in this field and have a
business-owner-to-business-owner conversation, it turns out to be great.”
They communicate that message around the east-central Minnesota region
too. Lori serves as the foundation president for the local technical school, Pine
Technical College, and both participate in the school’s Gold Collar career day,
which features speakers from local manufacturers promoting the trade.
The college even has a Women in Technology Day for sixth-grade girls. Lori and
Traci have helped create a break-out session for that event called Metal Magic,
during which they give interactive presentations about different types of metal
and how metallic products are made. “Sixth grade is when you’ve got to catch
them,” Lori said. “By high school, many kids have strong ideas about what they
want to do with their lives”—particularly the motivated ones.
And those, she said, are the people manufacturing needs.
Reprinted with permission from THE FABRICATOR, August 2008. Visit our website at www.thefabricator.com.
© FMA Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved. FosteReprints: 866-879-9144, www.marketingreprints.com.
Traci Tapani, Co-President: [email protected]
Lori Tapani, Co-President: [email protected]
Paul Prescott, Technical Sales Manager: [email protected]
www.wyomingmachine.com
30680 Forest Boulevard
PO Box 180
Stacy, MN 55079